


make a desert of my mind

by sodiumflare



Series: peacetime [2]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Allusions to canon-typical violence, M/M, laurent's not wrong he's just an asshole, welcome to the trauma bus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-04-21
Packaged: 2020-01-23 13:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18551032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodiumflare/pseuds/sodiumflare
Summary: Vannes' eyes flicked to Laurent's, one eyebrow in a regal arch.Everyone was watching Damen. Damen wasn't watching at all.





	make a desert of my mind

"Complacent," Laurent murmured.

Beside him, Nikandros startled. "Sir?"

Laurent nodded to where Damen stood, surrounded by a small crowd of scarlet-cloaked Akielons. An encloaking of Akielons, Laurent had joked once, and Damen had laughed. "That set, from the south. He's spent most of his time with them at state functions over the last month."

"He has," Nikandros said tiredly. Damen wasn't politicking. Damen was acting as though he was among friends.

Meanwhile, a contingent from Vask hung near the corner of the hall, chatting with the ambassador from Patras, and Vannes and her squad of Veretians stood mostly with themselves. Vannes' eyes flicked to Laurent's, one eyebrow in a regal arch.

Everyone was watching Damen. Damen wasn't watching at all.

They were watching Laurent, too, but Laurent stood close enough to Nikandros to qualify as mingling, and Pallas and Lazar, a bilateral negotiation all by  themselves, were within orbit.

Laurent hid his scowl in his cup. "Shall we? I'll take Patras."

"Sir?" Nikandros tried again.

"Make it a game: five points for every marriage arranged, ten for every fostering," Laurent said. "And please stop playing ignorant. You're excessively bad at it."

Laurent set off across the hall, found a servent and beckoned him to follow, and had coaxed the Patrans onto some low couches by the time a platter of roasted meats found its way to them, as well as more wine. Laurent left his glass untouched. The Patran delegate was some cousin of Torveld, and that left him feeling unbalanced, as if recovering from a fever.

"Beautifully straightforward, aren't they? These Akielons?" the Patran asked idly, and Laurent smiled.

"Yet it doesn't do to understimate them. After all, a broadsword is certainly straightforward," he warned, then raised his voice slightly. "Vannes! You must join us."

Vannes smiled tolerantly, and crossed to seat herself next to him. Her hangers-on drifted with her. "Can you _believe_ Thera in the octon?" she asked, and the conversation followed.

He found Nikandros some hours later, staring into the dark gardens from the palace's portico. The sliver moon brought little light, and dry leaves rattled unseen in the chill breeze. It was autumn, properly. Laurent curled his fingers around his jacket's cuffs. A child's gesture: he released them, forced himself to breathe. "How are our Vaskian friends?"

"Soothed," Nikandros said. "Our Patran brothers?"

"Similar," Laurent said. "Is this what it was like before?"

Nikandros sighed, eyes fixed on the trees wrapped in shadow.  "This is how it was always was."

Laurent cast back to those early days in Arles, forced himself to focus. Kastor's betrayal had been an earthquake to Damen, had toppled his impossible belief in trust. Goodness. Family.

He'd hated Damen for that - for everything, then, but especially for his naive faith in blood, for his disbelieving grief for what Laurent had lost so long before. Now - perhaps Damen hadn't been foolish for trusting his family, but he'd been unforgiveably foolish for trusting his court. Kastor's conspirators hadn't only been Veretians.

"Thank you," Laurent said, left Nikandros by the portico.

Vannes caught him before he could exit the banquet hall. "He needs to be careful," she said quietly. "If he disregards -"

"I know," Laurent said.

\--

"Nikandros saved you from disaster tonight," Laurent said into the inky darkness. There was a slim taper burning on the desk, a small circle of golden light. He sat just outside of it.

The shadow that was Damen froze just inside their door. "Laurent?"

"Well. Nikandros and I. The Veretians and Patrans were feeling neglected, you see." Laurent knew better than to mistake Damen's stare for uncomprehension, so he continued. "It has not escaped their attention you prefer Akielon company."

"Why shouldn't I prefer my own people?" Damen asked, sitting. The candlelight bronzed his skin, flickered in his eyes, off the cuff on his wrist.

"My dear husband," Laurent said, "if you think kingship is about what the king wants, then you have missed something quite fundamental. You were leaving our guests unwelcomed, and there's no quicker way to lose favor. Well. Besides a plague, perhaps."

Damen wore the face of a stunned ox.

"I know this does not come easily to you," Laurent said into the silence. "But you truly have aptitude. Before, in - you were like a child thrown into a pool. You learned to swim. But now you are clutching the tiles at the side, with your friends. The rest of what you must attend to is not at the pool's edges."

Damen said, "I thought that's where your skills lay."

Laurent let the statement sit between them; examined it, as if in a box. Breathed. Finally: "If you think my job is to be your blade, that is your second mistake. And if you think to put your kingship in the hands of the man who tore the skin from your back, that is the third."

Damen made a sound as if stabbed. "We rule together-" he said.

"Yes," Laurent said. "We do. I love you and I trust you and I have bound my life to yours, but you must never forget what I have done to you. I drugged you. I tried to rape you. I nearly killed you." Damen's breathing had gone ragged. "Or had you forgotten?"

He felt the sensation of holding Damen's heart in his teeth.

Damen's eyes were wet, fixed on Laurent. "I know what you are capable of."

"Then rule like it," Laurent said, and swallowed down the knot in his throat.

"After we spoke," Damen said, voice wobbling like a top on its axis, "you warned me - I have been watching for your -"

Laurent said, "I'm not the only one who can set traps. Or did you believe Kastor truly acted alone?"

Damen's fist hit the table hard, and Laurent flinched in spite of himself. He was usually not aware of Damen's strength much these days. "The traitors were executed."

"Traitors are like dust, husband," Laurent said. "They gather if not frequently dealt with. In holding the center, we hold the most powerful chairs in any room. To get what we need -"

Damen had gone grey, eyes wide and staring. "This is too much for us to give up."

" _This is not about us,"_ Laurent hissed, and the candle guttered. Laurent steadied himself, pulled his nails into his palms. "This is about the power we hold and your _utter blindness_ of its consequences. Everyone around you sees it. Why can't you?"

In the ensuing silence, Damen buried his face in his hands. Laurent tasted blood - he'd bit his lip, sometime.

"You are very good at loyalty," Laurent said softly. "You can use that, if you choose. I only wish it was enough."

\--

Damen's laughter hung in the room like a struck chord, and candlelight glimmered off his lionshead brooch. His arm was slung around the Patran delegate, utterly dwarfing the man. Vannes smiled, flashed an approving glance in Laurent's direction. Pallas was gesticulating wildly while Lazar reached to right his cup, smiling.

With a whisper of metal and leather, Nikandros stepped next to Laurent. "How's he doing?"

Across the room, Damen glanced their way.

"I've just said something amusing," Laurent said. "Laugh."

Nikandros ground out a chortle, and Damen found somewhere else to put his eyes. "That good?"

Laurent exhaled, lengthened his spine. Let his eyes close for a fraction of a moment. Opened them. Nearly smiled. "Adequate." 

**Author's Note:**

> So I guess this became a series. 
> 
> Title from Lucy Dacus's "Next of Kin":
> 
> _I'll make a desert of my mind_  
>  _Unfold myself so flat and wide_  
>  _Have nothing in my line of sight_  
>  _No cover for my thoughts to hide_  
>  _Never went to my Monaco_  
>  _But I held your hand in the pocket of my coat_  
>  _I learned to be loving and then to be alone_  
>  _Satisfied body and a hungry soul_


End file.
